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“Books with buzz … Madras on Rainy Days. Born in India and raised in Minneapolis by an overprotective mother, Layla, the feisty young heroine of Samina Ali’s accomplished debut is ‘like a ghost caught in cultural ruins.’ Returning to India for an arranged marriage, she feels alternately trapped and fascinated by her family’s Muslim traditions as she struggles with everything from her chador to her handsome new husband to the lost promise of her past. ”

– Vogue Magazine

“This bodice ripper turns out to be a deeply feminist novel with richly drawn and complicated characters.”

– Ms. Magazine

“As the first Indian Muslim woman fiction writer to be published in America, Samina Ali has unveiled a distinct voice that reflects the conflict faced by immigrants belonging to dual cultures … A powerful narrative in a richly detailed and impressive first novel.”

– Oman Daily Observer

Excerpt from Madras on Rainy Days

“When I sneaked a peak at the old man, I saw inside his nose and noticed long hair reaching out to curve around each nostril. Inch-long hair also poked out from behind the low-cut kurta and from below the wide pajama bottoms. I lowered my gaze, somehow feeling I had been improper to notice these things. Segregation between women and men had that effect on me. Since I was a child, my mother had tried to teach me correct behavior and I followed her wishes when she was watching — covering my hair, hiding my legs, draping a scarf over kurtas to conceal the curve of my breasts, muffling my laughter, whispering, averting my eyes. I always knew I had to do these things because man, as Islam said, was the weaker sex, so it was my responsibility to keep him from becoming aroused. All these precautions were taken to prevent intercourse or, as Amme would say, so I would not fall prey to a man’s desires. Naturally, then, when I encountered any man, young or old, in the theater, on the bus, passing by our car, rather than feeling chaste I felt more desire wrapped in the chador, more aware that I was a woman, and he, simply by the fate of being a man, wanted me. So I sometimes met their curious gaze, sometimes let them brush against me as they walked by, sometimes even followed them with my eyes, admiring their shoulders and chins, their chests and forearms, their hands. From what better place to notice a man’s body than from behind a chador?”

Two days before Layla’s wedding to Sameer, her distraught mother takes her through the back alleyways of Hyderabad, India to visit an alim, a spiritual healer. Layla is not fit to go through with the marriage. She has arrived from the U.S. already pregnant with her American lover’s baby. If her fiancé were to find out, she could be banished from her family and everything she knows. But the alim is unable to help and Layla is forced to go through with the wedding. Her husband is a handsome, ambitious engineer, and to Layla’s surprise, he provides her with exactly what she has yearned for: a home. Yet on their honeymoon in Madras, as the monsoon rains drum ceaselessly down outside, she discovers that Sameer has a secret of his own.

In this finely observed debut novel, Samina Ali intimately explores a girl’s journey to self-possession. Ali’s haunting prose and richly drawn characters lay bare the complex and hidden world behind the veil, differentiating, along the way, Islamic practices that are based in culture and patriarchy from those that derive from the faith. Madras on Rainy Days is a dazzling performance by an arresting new voice.

PRAISE:

“Samina Ali’s debut novel ‘Madras on Rainy Days,’ has created quite a buzz. Described by critics as ‘lyrical’, ‘compelling’ and ‘deeply feminist,’ it is a story of a Muslim woman’s struggle in the modern world.”

– International Examiner

“Muslim women are much spoken of, seldom heard from, unless in the almost obligatory television scenes of bereaved Palestinian mothers or veiled Afghani daughters. Perhaps no other group is so misunderstood. But this is changing. Witness the timely Madras on Rainy Days by Indian-American Muslim author Samina Ali … She successfully pinpoints the critical issues facing her characters as they attempt to reconcile Islam with modernity.”

– Bookpage

“Some novels let you read from a distance as a dispassionate observer; others playfully invite you to join the fun. Then there are those, like Madras on Rainy Days, that demand you live in their created worlds from the first sentence until the last … Writers like Ali — with the knowledge and empathy to reveal the full richness and complexity of a culture, and the distance and insight to look beyond it — are invaluable in helping us understand our complex multicultural world.”

– Ottawa Citizen

“Astute commentary on contemporary Hyderabad society.”

– New York Times Book Review

“The novel has a fierce and shimmering intensity, and great care has been given to rendering the authentic, anthropological unfolding of a Muslim wedding — the ornate details of each day, the expectations of a new daughter-in-law assimilating into her husband’s family. In a sense, the main character of the novel is Islam, with its strong pull and demands. Ali powerfully captures the precarious and painful position of Muslims in India today, where the threat of communal violence and riots constantly hovers.”

“What is beautiful about Madras on Rainy Days is the persistence to reason, the painful honesty, and the will to take control of life, difficult as it is, weaving hope and restoration into stories of despondency and loss.”

– Deccan Chonicle (India)

“A beautifully written and fully realized first novel.”

– ZZ Packer, author of Drinking Coffee Elsewhere

“With her debut novel, Samina Ali makes a bold entrance on the scene of American immigrant literature. Ali is a compelling storyteller. In language that is at once lyrical and unsentimental, she explores the upside and downside of being a first generation Muslim Indo-American woman. A must-read for anyone interested in understanding the multicultural fabric of contemporary America.”

– Bharati Mukherjee, author of Desireable Daughters

“Ali explores cultural conditions with sensitivity, and mercifully does not over-exoticise … she is one of a rare breed of writers who take us into the closed world behind a Muslim woman’s veil.”

– Far Eastern Economic Review

“India has the second largest population in the world, yet no significant writing by Indian-American Muslim novelists has emerged in the body of immigrant fiction in this country. That is, until the arrival of Samina Ali on the scene … Ali portrays this culture with great sensitivity in her debut novel Madras on Rainy Days. She is the voice of masses of Muslim women who are both invisible and mute … Madras on Rainy Days is full of ironies, of expectations gone awry. It is also the story of the dilemma facing every immigrant family in this country, in balancing the values of competing cultural heritages. With this novel, Ali fills a lacuna in the body of immigrant literature in which Muslims are conspicuous by their absence… It is a wonderful book, refreshingly frank – no hypocrisy, no gilding of faults that can be found in any culture.”

– India Currents

“A novel that is at once powerful and gentle, and the characters continue to haunt long after the last page has been read. Ali is a strong new voice in the world of the English novel, and Madras on Rainy Days is a poignant and compelling tale, told with tremendous honesty and sensitivity.”
– viewsunplugged.com